Andrew MacKinlay: Will the Under-Secretary confirm that residents of the Irish Republic who commute into Northern Ireland, or by aeroplane to London, cannot and will not be required to have either an ID card or a passport? If so, surely that drives a coach and horses through the Bill unless or until Dail Eireann decides to introduce identical legislation. I asked this at Second Reading and was brushed off. Will he try not to do that this afternoon?

Andy Burnham: We are introducing a UK-wide scheme and, at this stage, there is no expectation that people would have to have an ID card to travel into Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland. He asked whether such people would need a passport, but that is an issue about immigration controls at that border. I can tell my hon. Friend that the Irish Republic is also looking at biometric systems of identification and it would be sensible if the two systems were closely aligned.

David Davis: May I bring the Under-Secretary back to the question from the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable)? Why should the House believe the estimates of the Home Office, which has a dreadful record on cost overruns and waste on IT projects, against not one but two independent reports, both of which say that the cost will be more than £15 billion?

Andy Burnham: I read the right hon. Gentleman's article in The Mail on Sunday yesterday, in which he confirmed his opposition in principle to ID cards, following his comments on antisocial behaviour orders. If he fails in his leadership bid, the right hon. Gentleman will be well placed for a role at Liberty. I do not accept that the Home Office has a dreadful record. The UK Passport Service is one of the most efficient operations in this country. It currently holds a database of accurate records on more than 44 million people and issues passports quickly and effectively. I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's premise that the Home Office, and the Government in general, cannot run a scheme of this kind; in fact, we are doing it every day.

David Davis: It is no surprise that the Under-Secretary did not answer my question, but I am glad that he referred to passports. He ought to read the Public Accounts Committee report on the passports disaster. It is very good. I should know; I wrote it. In assessing the benefits of the ID card scheme, has he calculated the alternative ways of achieving the same aims; more police, stronger border controls, tighter controls of welfare benefits and more resources to the security services? Has he assessed the costs of those, and has it come to more or less than £15 billion?

Bob Blizzard: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. The community support officers that we already have in my constituency are greatly valued by those in the community, which looks forward to having some more. Our local newspaper—the Lowestoft Journal—publishes a report of every crime that is committed in the town each year and it shows that burglary and car theft are decreasing dramatically, but that much of the remaining crime is criminal damage, often committed by quite young people. Will my hon. Friend say something about how CSOs can work with schools to target some of those young people who are responsible for a great deal of the criminal damage?

Tom Brake: I will let other Members judge what they feel about the Secretary of State being complicit and whether that is something that may or may not happen in the future.
	The Opposition spokesman said that the Bill tackled a number of issues; environmental, commercial and consumer issues, as well as noise, charging for the use of airport facilities according to aircraft emissions, and making noise control systems. On the commercial front, the issues include the removal of restrictions on local authorities so that they can compete with privately owned airports; the removal of the right of appeal in the allocation of route licenses; the matter of requiring the Civil Aviation Authority to provide assistance in relation to the health of both crew and passengers; and the levy on air travel organisers to replenish the fund.
	On the environmental issues, and given the points that have been made, it is fair to say that the consensus is that the Bill does not go far enough in relation to the environment. The fact that the airport operators and airlines are happy with the environmental provisions suggests that the Bill does not push the boundaries far enough. Members will have seen the representations from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, for instance, which believes that the Bill does not address the big environmental issues and that it is mere tinkering, given the scale of the challenges that aviation poses. The CPRE also suggests that the CAA should publish annual figures showing the climate change impact of all flights departing from the UK. That may be outside the scope of this Bill, but it might be worthy of discussion in Committee at least.
	As other hon. Members have pointed out, the CPRE has legitimate concerns about how it will be possible for Coventry airport to enforce noise and emissions controls, given that one of its main operators is Thomsonfly, which also flies from the airport. Has the Minister had any discussions with the Coventry airport operators about how the provisions will operate in practice?
	AirportWatch has also provided a submission, and its main concern is that increased powers will be given to local airports. Some of the lobby groups agree that airport operators should not be given further powers, because they do not exercise the powers that they have now for the benefit of the local community, nor are they responsive to the local community's concerns. AirportWatch has also highlighted the point about possible increases in the number of flights as a result of the changes, which the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) mentioned in his intervention. It also picked up on the point about the need for an independent monitoring and regulatory system to assess noise levels.
	Other hon. Members have referred to HACAN's concerns. While the CPRE and AirportWatch are of the view that the Bill does not go far enough, HACAN thinks that it goes too far in removing the separate movements limit. HACAN also echoes the concern of others that that is a subterfuge to "reduce" the environmental impact of the third runway so that it becomes justifiable.
	The Demand campaign group has also highlighted the issue of Coventry airport and asks how it would be possible for an airport that is partly owned by an airline to impose fines on that airline, so that it would in effect be fining itself. According to Demand, Coventry does not even have a system for keeping track of noise at present.
	As for the commercial implications of the Bill, it is true to say that supportive comments have been received from all sides on the proposal to allow local authority airports to compete. The one body that one thought might have opposed that proposal—BAA—is comfortable with the idea and does not see a problem with it.
	As for the removal of the right of appeal, again, no objection has been raised. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister when she sums up precisely what she thinks about the regulatory impact assessment's idea that there will be a marginal cost increase, because when people no longer have a right of appeal, they are likely to seek judicial review. Has any figure been attached to that marginal extra cost? Clearly, such an increase would be passed on to air transport users.
	On the aviation health unit, BAA has expressed measured concern, but broadly speaking, I believe that the idea has received support.
	Finally, there is the issue of consumer protection and the creation of the air travel trust fund levy. As other Members have said, this has to be all or nothing. The public believe that they are covered by insurance wherever they obtain their flights, and either they must be covered, and everyone who provides flights must contribute to a fund that covers people if their tour operator or airline goes out of business, or the public must be told that they are not guaranteed to be covered by anyone, unless they take out private insurance for themselves.
	It is difficult to have an intermediate position, whereby all consumers believe that they are covered but are not, and only one sector of the industry is required to contribute. I certainly support the idea that the fund should be rebuilt, but I also believe that its scope should be extended so that everyone is genuinely covered by it, through the £1 contribution that the Civil Aviation Authority has proposed.
	To conclude, I agree with the CPRE that the Bill only tinkers with the scale of the environmental challenges poses by aviation and its associated noise and emissions. The Liberal Democrats will not seek to divide the House tonight, but we will attempt to insert some backbone in the Bill in Committee. Freedom to fly must be balanced by freedom from environmental damage. At present the Bill does not balance those freedoms, and our objective is to ensure that by the time it receives Royal Assent, it does exactly that.

Alan Keen: We—when I say "we", I am talking about my hon. and special Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ann Keen), myself and the people on the council in Hounslow, the area that we cover—are concerned about the Bill because of what it does not say. We think that it may make it possible to increase numbers, which is why the Committee stage will be particularly interesting. That was a lovely smile that I just got from the new Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck). I welcome her to her place today, and I can tell her that although I have been in the House for 13 years, and have lived close to Heathrow airport for 40 years, if she ever asks me for any advice on Heathrow, it will be the first time that any Minister has done that.
	Not only have I lived within six miles of Heathrow for 40 years, but for all of the 30 years before I was elected in 1992, I worked in industries close to the airport and often dealt with air transport companies, and with BAA itself, as customers. I know the industry pretty well, my constituency contains the largest number of employees at Heathrow, and my constituents suffer the greatest noise—more noise than anyone else, by a very high percentage. I therefore have a special interest in this subject.
	We still have not given way on runway 3, so I shall comment on some of the arguments about the expansion or non-expansion of Heathrow. I speak as a friend of Heathrow airport. I am very proud of the air transport industry, and until runway 3 was suggested I had always supported expansion, within the present boundaries. I am not the only Member of Parliament who has always supported previous expansions but has changed his or her mind since the runway 3 proposal was made. It is worth listening to all of us who have changed our minds about continuing expansion.
	There are some people who always oppose expansion of Heathrow, and I am certainly not one of those. HACAN has changed out of all recognition. I hope people will not mind me saying this, because I have told the organisation about it before, but I used to class those in HACAN as nutters. I remember going to its annual general meeting when I was campaigning for the 1992 election. It holds the AGM where it is based, in Sheen, rather than in Cranford, Heston or Hounslow West, where the real noise is. The chairman then was not the same person who is chairman now; the present chairman and vice-chairman are helping to build it into a really good campaigning organisation. At that AGM, the then chairman said to me, "I don't know why you can't come out and condemn terminal 5." I said, "Let me ask you a question: do you support terminals 1, 2, 3 and 4?" He refused to answer, because if he had been honest, the answer would have been that he did not support any terminals at Heathrow airport—unless, of course, he was flying from it, I presume.
	I am not a protester, but a friend of the airlines. Some people accuse me of sitting on the fence over terminal 5, but I was the only Member of Parliament who took the trouble to make a submission before the inquiry started, so I was entitled to call witnesses, which I did, from both sides of the argument. I could call people who lived under the flight path, so that their opinions did not have to be heard through legal representatives.
	I have said this before, but it is worth saying it again: those who oppose the Government often criticise them for not consulting enough, but there was a big difference between what is happening now and what happened with terminal 5, when the previous Government were in power. The start of the whole process was just the submission of a planning application, so those who were against it were put on the defensive straight away. At least with runway 3, consultation was announced, so everyone was on a level playing field when people started to put forward their views.
	What will the future of Heathrow airport be? Before I was elected in 1992 I spent the whole of my career in the private sector, so I recognise the need for competitiveness to drive down costs. However, I am also a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament, and I understand the co-operative ideology as well. It is essential that consumers be consulted—and in this case, that means those who live around Heathrow and suffer the noise, as well as those who fly, who have already been mentioned many times today.
	If there were ever a case for the Government to play an effective part on behalf of the electorate, it is here and now with respect to the possible expansion of Heathrow airport. Those who live close to Heathrow understand the issues much better than those who do not live close to it. I have heard people saying time and again that one gets used to the noise and then it is no bother—but that is not possible with aircraft noise. It is more than enough if the noise wakes people up. I have also lived near railway sidings where trucks are shunted through the night and I believe that it is possible to get used to that sound, but it is not possible to get used to aircraft noise, particularly at night. My two grandchildren, aged one and three, live right under the flight path of the northern runway in Isleworth, and it is horrific. Many people already living stressful lives are easily woken and then find it impossible to get back to sleep.
	I am not trying to make the point that we should get rid of Heathrow airport. I have already said that there are more than 65,000 permanent jobs and many thousand more in companies surrounding Heathrow in the freight, engineering, airline food and other supporting industries. We desperately need Heathrow airport, but it seems to many of us that the Government look too much to the airline industry and listen not enough to the people who live close by. Many of my constituents work at Heathrow, but suffer from a tremendous amount of noise. Anyone who has seen photos or newsreel of aircraft flying over the top of chimneys has seen Cranford. Waye avenue is adjacent to the airport boundary. The Government, however, do not take enough notice of residents.
	When the previous Secretary of State made a statement about airport policy, I specifically asked whether he would help with relieving traffic congestion, particularly around the junction where the A4 crosses the A312—one of the busiest junctions in the country. It is currently served by a roundabout, which leads to tremendous queues, particularly during the Heathrow rush hour and we need to be aware that the Heathrow rush hour extends much longer than the average one. People who live close to Heathrow make more fuss about the traffic because they know that something could have been done about the problem. It would take only a tiny fraction of the profit that comes into Heathrow to put the road junction problem right. The refusal to do anything about it time and again means that people lose trust. Yet if we are to build up our air transport industry, it is important that people trust the industry, but the prospect of runway 3 is moving people over to the other side of the argument.
	What is the big problem with Heathrow expansion? It is a story that has afflicted British industry over the last 30 years—short-termism. There is no question that Heathrow airport can be expanded with the addition of runway 3, but at quite a heavy cost to local people as well as a financial cost. If that runway goes ahead, however, it will mark the limit of what could ever be sustainable at Heathrow because the whole area is so built up. It is a short-term viewpoint to believe that Heathrow can be expanded for a relatively short period. We really need a new airport. We cannot go on as we are. I can understand the industry itself not wanting to find an awful lot of money for a new airport, but the failure to build one will cost a lot more in the long run.
	I can understand why decisions are made on a short-term basis. Rod Eddington did a magnificent job at British Airways, but he is already on his way. He is not taking a long-term view of things, as he is going back to him home country of Australia. We must understand that people are important. If we continue to ignore them, the industry will not get away with it.
	One good thing about the Bill is that it recognises that the polluter should pay. I believe that it is the first time that that principle has gone down in print in a Bill. If the polluter has to pay, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain Heathrow airport at its current expansion rate. Something else will have to be done in readiness.
	I have been asked a few times by various people whether I want Heathrow to be a desert. Air transport is either going to expand or it is not, so I would certainly love to be the owner of that desert over the next 20 years. Whatever happens elsewhere in the UK, the notion that Heathrow could become a desert is surely put forward by people who are either stupid or being paid to say it. I rather suspect that cash has something to do with it.
	I read an interesting article in The Guardian today about Chinese tourists, who were complaining about the £50 charge for a visa—but they are still coming. Some people say that measures will be taken to stop expansion because of the environmental damage worldwide, but does that mean that Chinese tourists here this week will be the last to come here from China? I do not think so. There are already 0.5 million middle-class people in India. We have to look at the situation more widely and rid ourselves of a short-term vision. I was heartened by the penalty clauses in the Bill, because they amount to recognition that the polluter should pay.
	I shall finish shortly as other hon. Members want to speak, but I want to come back to my own constituents. The Cranford agreement has already been mentioned. When the wind blows from the east, planes have to take off towards the east—it happens about 25 per cent. of the total time in a year—and the north runway is not used for take-offs because my constituents live so close to the end of that runway. It is different for normal take-offs to the west and from about 3 o'clock the other runway is used, which gives people a break, but when the planes take off to the east, the southern runway is used all the time. That is the basis of the Cranford agreement: it is an informal agreement, but it has applied for 50 years.
	I would like to table an amendment that would make the Cranford agreement a permanent one in order to provide protection for my constituents who have already given such a lot to the air transport industry. The London borough of Hounslow and HACAN would like the Bill to be amended in Committee and I hope that the Government will listen to us because we have had considerable experience. For example, I spent the 13 years before I came here working half a mile from the touchdown point, directly under the southern runway at Heathrow. It is pretty horrific. It may not be too bad when things are going well at work, but when under stress, it is almost impossible to cope with such noise. We cannot go on and on ignoring the problem. As I said, we hope that the Government will listen sympathetically to the case for the amendments, which will attempt to put some conditions down. The Bill looks good in places, but what it does not say is also important.

Graham Stringer: I do not accept that the industry is a tax-free zone—it is not—and it contributes almost £1 billion through the tax paid by aeroplanes using airports. I prefer to think of it as part of the travel industry and, unlike other parts of the travel industry, it operates and pays some taxes without a subsidy.
	On my hon. Friend's other point, if the view is that extra taxes must be imposed to deal with some of the aviation industry's environmental problems, a global solution is the only way to do so, otherwise we would put our economy at a severe disadvantage.
	The industry is strange because of the way that its has developed historically. If we looked at the CAA in principle, we would not put an economic regulator together with a body that is responsible for safety—that goes against most basic first principles—but as a member of the Select Committee on Transport, I have asked aeroplane pilots, airline and airport operators and ex-members of the CAA about that, and they say that it does not seem to cause any problem at present. It is useful to use that as an analogy in the context of the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) finding it strange that airports can fine aeroplanes that fly off path. It is probably strange but, where that scheme exists, it probably works.

Mark Lazarowicz: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but is it not true that even in the UK, seven airlines have gone bust in the past four years? Some of them served Edinburgh, so my constituents were affected. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that there is a need for greater consumer protection, and that he should perhaps be more sympathetic to such people's problems? They might well be able to use their credit card to get home, but that is not much use if they cannot get recompense for cost of their flight when an airline goes bust, or recompense for the cost of accommodation booked through a website.

Julian Brazier: The hon. Gentleman makes his point, and it is very amusing, but we are trying to sort out where we go from here. His party has been in government for eight years. During that time, and in other parts of the world, too, huge advances have been made in aviation design to reduce noise. Some, unfortunately, have been traded off for an emissions record that is not as good.
	We must ask where we go from here. The clear message from both sides of the House is that a system under which the airports police themselves will not be satisfactory. A system in which it seems the safeguards against night flying will be even weaker is certainly not satisfactory.
	The Bill, uniquely, allows airports to establish their own penalty schemes to fine aircraft operators whose aircraft exceed noise limits when taking off and landing. That is a dubious principle, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough called it the privatisation of justice.
	Two or three Members have alluded to what the Bill has to say about that. It contains one of the most extraordinary phrases I have seen in a piece of legislation:
	"A relevant manager who receives penalties under a penalty scheme shall make payments equal to the amount of those penalties for purposes which appear to him to be likely to be of benefit to persons who live in the area in which the aerodrome is situated."
	The hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) objected to that with the candour for which he is well known. The mind fills with colourful examples. Might a "relevant manager"—a magic phrase clearly specified in the Bill—decide that his or her brother-in-law's bungalow would benefit from double-glazing to keep out noise? What about the sports and social centre most accessible to the airport's workers? There is, of course, no mention of any benefit for those who suffer from low flying but who are not in the vicinity of the airport.
	There may be further ridiculous consequences. One of the most extreme examples was cited by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake): the operator for Coventry airport is TUI, the company behind Thompson Fly, for which Coventry is the main hub. Do we really believe that that operator will be fair and balanced in policing the activities of a company that belongs to its own financial group?
	My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough raised the problems with Nottingham East Midlands airport and other non-designated airports. Frankly, the Bill offers little for people concerned about those.
	Meanwhile, in the south-east, the wealthy BAA, which has a virtual monopoly with more than 90 per cent. of aviation by passenger in the south-east, is in a strong position to bully individual airlines locked in a very competitive market. I have made it clear that I share the concerns of those who worry that there is no independent policing of airports. On the other hand, there is nothing to stop a monopolistic operator bullying individual airlines, which would at least benefit—from the public's point of view if not from their own—from a competitive market. Indeed, large parts of the Bill could have been drafted by BAA—perhaps they were.
	The Bill does not focus on the airlines' positive ideas for doing something about the emissions problems, such as emissions trading. In fact, it took an intervention from the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) to get the Minister to discuss that at all. Nor, to the best of my memory, was the industry's exciting document "Sustainable Aviation" mentioned at all. It is true that the EU controls emissions trading, but surely the Government have an opportunity to show some leadership and do something positive—I might even quote that old phrase about not finding ourselves isolated in Europe. Surely, we could get some excitement going across borders about those ideas and work with the airlines, too.
	I do not want to provoke you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by taking my remarks too wide, but I have a close connection with two small businesses a million miles away from aviation; one is owned and operated by my father, and my wife works for the other. Vast quantities of regulation are constantly being poured on those businesses, so how must BAA, an organisation whose activities affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, regard the amount of regulation it faces? We need to strike a balance.
	While we are on the subject of the EU, I was thoroughly disappointed that the Minister made no mention of the European Aviation Safety Agency. He was right to say that we must look at research into deep vein thrombosis and other conditions, and the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) made some telling points about that, but why should airlines operating in Britain pick up the full bill when that research benefits people throughout Europe?
	It is equally important when considering air safety to look at issues such as certificates of airworthiness. Does the Minister feel comfortable that responsibility for those certificates is being moved from the CAA to EASA when that organisation shows little evidence that it is competent to take it on?
	When we look more closely at the powers that the Secretary of State is giving his officers to deal with noise and vibration, they appear to be both great and vague: great in their potential but vague in their benefit. For example, the Secretary of State will be given the power to direct an airport manager to use a particular runway. The explanatory notes tell us that the same powers could be used to require an aircraft to take off or land in a given direction at a given time. One phrase says it all:
	"So directions could be used to move noise from one area to another, even if this does not limit or mitigate the total amount of noise suffered generally."
	What does the Secretary of State envisage himself doing? He could almost become an airport manager. We have discovered that airport managers will be given marvellous extra powers to shell out money. There is almost no end to the Secretary of State's talents. Will there be a hotline direct to his office? Our constituents could call at a moment's notice to deal with a plane that was making too much noise.
	The clear message from my hon. Friends is that proper action is needed based on modern measurements of noise, taking into account all the factors brought out by Members on both sides of the House, such as low vibration and the distinction for night flying. I shall not reiterate all of them. That action must be backed up by the proper tracking of aircraft, which is not happening at present, as we all know. What possible good will the Secretary of State's new powers do, except to give the appearance that he is doing something?

Kate Hoey: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a serious issue tonight: the humanitarian crisis that faces Zimbabwe. I am especially grateful that the Speaker enabled the debate to happen so soon after I returned from Zimbabwe and even more grateful that we have a reasonable amount of time—although I appreciate that perhaps you thought that you would have an early night, Mr. Deputy Speaker—to consider the issue and allow one or two other hon. Members to intervene.
	As I left Zimbabwe only 10 days ago, people begged me to take their message to outside world. After the dreadful sights that I witnessed when travelling through Matabeleland, Midlands and Mashonaland, I have no doubt about my responsibility to get the message out. I was fortunate in that, with the help of some brave Zimbabweans, I was able to get some good film and video footage, which has been shown widely on international broadcast networks. That is especially important because, as we all know, there are no independent media in Zimbabwe. There is no longer an independent daily newspaper and, although The Zimbabwean, which is put together in London and printed in South Africa, gets around Zimbabwe, it does not reach nearly as wide an area as The Daily News.
	I begin with the words of a young Zimbabwean, who sent me a message today before the debate. He said:
	"When you speak on Monday, you speak knowing that our thoughts, hopes and prayers go with you. We want the world to know what is happening here."
	As hon. Members will remember, I previously visited Zimbabwe in 2003, again undercover, when I saw the thousands of displaced farm workers who had been put off their farms after many white farmers had been displaced. I saw then that little farming was happening on those farms. Roads alongside them were full of dying crops and those that had not even been planted. However, since my previous visit, ordinary Zimbabweans' plight, which was dreadful then, has become much worse, and the regime's actions far more shocking. Unless resolute action is taken, I fear that the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe will move to a new and even more sinister phase.
	For the past six weeks, Robert Mugabe's regime has been engaged in a brutal and systematic mission to destroy the homes and livelihoods of some of the poorest people in Africa. There is no shelter for many of the thousands who have been displaced. The original figure of 250,000 that somebody somewhere in the United Nations cited is wrong. Even in my short time there, I could see that the numbers of those displaced are far greater—750,000 to 1 million people. Most of them are without shelter at night in winter.
	Bulawayo, Kwe Kwe, Gweru and Harare were among the places that I visited and witnessed the terrible scenes of the aftermath of Operation Drive Out Rubbish or Operation Murambatsvina. In Killarney camp on the outskirts of Bulawayo, I saw the police attacking people's homes. Many had lived there for 20 or 25 years. Grotesque scenes of burning houses were spread across the landscape, smoke rising from the burning thatch. I watched as teams of police clubbed or bulldozed walls and brought corrugated iron roofs crashing to the ground.
	Later in Harare, when I met Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, he described what was happening as Pol Pot in slow motion. He and others have since used that description internationally. They are strong words, but from what I saw, they are truthful. In the narrow streets of Makakoba, Bulawayo's oldest township, I saw truckloads of armed police in riot gear, simply standing around and forcing families to knock down their homes. Some families had built shelters at the back for the many extended members who had been displaced from the rural areas because of what had happened on the farms and come to urban areas. Those shelters were being forced down, and it was quite tragic to see people trying to rescue tiny bits of corrugated iron, brick and stone to take away and use somewhere else.
	Killarney was the settlement on the outskirts of Bulawayo that I had particularly wanted to go back to, because I had visited it when I was there before, and attended church in one of the small huts there with the pastor. When we went back on that Sunday, it was the day when the people were being removed, and the church had already been demolished. What happened was deeply moving, because many of the churches of all denominations in Bulawayo had managed to scrape together enough fuel, which is in incredibly short supply there, to bring their own vehicles and to carry a few desperate families away to a place of safety. Shell-shocked families and elderly couples were gathering up the remains of their earthly possessions, usually just a few pots and a mattress. Many of them would not leave unless they could take those possessions with them, because they represented their only hope of having anything with which to start again.
	I want to pay tribute to the many courageous people who drove me round and helped me to shoot the video footage that I brought out of the country, despite the huge numbers of security police, members of the Central Intelligence Organisation, who are everywhere now. There are far more than there were two years ago; Mugabe has spent millions of dollars on recruiting huge numbers of them. That video footage has now been shown around the world and it has helped to alert the international community to what the regime is doing. It was ironic that some of my guides had spent their youth fighting as freedom fighters in the bush. For them, the struggle continues to this day, and I salute them.
	I also want to salute the very brave women, particularly in Bulawayo but also in Harare, who are members of WOZA—Women of Zimbabwe Arise—and who take to the streets repeatedly in peaceful protest. They are often arrested for defying the draconian laws on public association. I also pay tribute to the teams of individual Zimbabweans who go out gathering evidence of human rights abuse for the Solidarity Peace Trust. I want to draw to Members' attention the trust's first report, which has been sent round to some people today. If anyone else wants a copy, they can get one from me. It is the interim report of May-June 2005 on the Zimbabwean Government's urban cleansing and forced eviction campaign. The trust has the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, as one of its key sponsors. The report presents a shocking tale of what has happened, including numbers, and I would commend it to every Member of the House.
	I have to point out that people are dying in order to get the message out of Zimbabwe, and to try to raise any international outrage. I was privileged to have been able to be there, even if it was only for one short week. I knew that, if anything had happened, I was unlikely to be killed, but I was left with the impression of people risking their lives every minute of the day. Even ordinary people conducting their everyday lives need to be brave in Zimbabwe. The vendors' markets, once a lively feature of towns and cities across the country, have all gone. Most of the pitches were licensed by the local councils. Bulawayo council is in the control of the Movement for Democratic Change, and it used to collect rent from the stall-holders, who all had licences. The pitches were laid out with yellow lines to show their boundaries. Now the plots are deserted, with only mangled wire and scorch marks left behind.
	Particularly shocking were the industrial suburbs of Harare, where there used to be hundreds of bustling workshops, with their valuable machinery. Many people who wanted to be able to look after their own livelihoods had created these small businesses and factories, perhaps fixing cars or doing some sewing, all using machinery. The Mugabe police simply came in and bulldozed them down, destroying thousands of pounds worth of machinery and leaving flattened concrete behind. Those buildings had been solidly built. Mugabe and his forces talk about these constructions being illegal, but they were proper homes. In many cases, people had lived in them all their lives, but now their contents have been destroyed, and those people's homes and lives ruined. I had also visited those parts of the outskirts of Harare the last time I was there, so I could see the difference. The area literally looks as though an earthquake has hit it; it is quite unbelievable when I remember the thriving suburb that it used to be.
	The destruction and misappropriation of businesses continues in another form what started with the illegal seizure of commercial farms. As I pointed out earlier, most of the farm workers have been displaced to urban areas and are now being displaced again. Mugabe saw how easy it was to get away with displacing those farm workers and farmers and knows that there is no appetite to resist him. He has African leaders parroting his propaganda lies for him and the leaders of the industrial world by and large swallowing them and choking on what is sometimes, I believe, a misplaced post-colonial guilt.
	I am still concerned about companies in this country that continue to do business with counterparts in Zimbabwe that are working hand in hand with the regime. Supermarkets—I simply mention Tesco but there are many—have not yet taken seriously their obligations to ensure that their vegetables and flowers are not being sourced from illegally seized farms or operations run by proxies for the regime. There is also evidence that banks based in this country and on the continent still co-operate in arranging lines of credit for the regime and its associates.
	Last week, the European Union increased the numbers of people on the banned list, and finally banned Grace Mugabe, Robert Mugabe's wife, from being able to come over here and shop at Harrods. I welcome that decision. Many people, however, have still not been put on the list. One of the people whom we must get on that banned list is Gono, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, who has been the driving force behind much of the getting rid of people and small businesses.
	What is most shocking, however, and most upsetting, is the way in which Mugabe's refusal to co-operate with the World Food Programme and formally ask for assistance means that the WFP must bend its rules in order to put out an appeal to donors. It is time that we started setting our own rules. As a major donor Government, we need to demand very special terms before providing assistance to people trapped under a regime that is not only failing but taking positive action to deprive its people of basic human rights of shelter and food—a human right that the UN is meant to uphold. The world talks of finding new ways to tackle new problems, but this evil tragedy in Zimbabwe is happening so slowly, and Mugabe is such a cunning manipulator, that we must find completely new ways of dispensing aid. As Michael Holman recently wrote:
	"The West's unconditional generosity has done—and is doing—more long-term damage to Zimbabwe than short term good".
	Aid organisations must face up to the fact that in Zimbabwe they cannot be apolitical. The crisis with which they are dealing is not a natural disaster but a deliberately manufactured tool of oppression and political control. The normal rules do not apply, and they must speak out in protest against the ZANU-PF regime. Without question, the African Union must demand that the International Red Cross and the United Nations relief agencies are given unrestricted access to Zimbabwe to deal with the internal refugee and food crisis, as they would have in any other disaster situation. Those bodies must also demand, however, that the African Union tackles the political paralysis in Africa that has allowed Mugabe to run amok and set back his country's progress by 50 years. I hope that the UN envoy's team who have arrived today will be able to go around and see what is happening. I worry that they will only be taken where the Government want to take them. We hope, however, that they will be independent and go out and see what is happening.
	I hope that the organisers of the Live8 concerts will urge the millions who flock to the concerts on 2 July to demand that the world leaders attending the G8 summit get their heads out of the sand and put Zimbabwe's plight right at the top of their agenda.
	Most importantly and immediately, our Government will lose all credibility in tackling the problems of Africa if they are seen to demand high standards of African Governments and yet, because of whatever petty domestic reasons, statistics or figures, send back asylum seekers to the mercy of Mugabe's state agents. Our Government face a massive test of their commitment to Africa's future, rather than to the dapper but corrupt bigwigs who will tell the Prime Minister what he wants to hear, then go back and, like Mugabe, treat their people as dirt to be cleared away. Our loyalty must be to the people of Africa—the poorest people of Africa—and perhaps the most immediate test of that commitment involves the asylum seekers who are on hunger strike not many miles from here.
	I was shocked today to receive a letter from someone telling me to look at something in the May edition of "News&Views", described as
	"The magazine for Foreign and Commonwealth Office people around the world".
	It trumpeted
	"Double FCO success at IND awards",
	referring to the immigration and nationality directorate.
	What was the award? The FCO's global migration team collected it on behalf of the FCO. A member of the team is quoted as saying
	"The team has worked hard",
	and
	"it's great to see the two departments working together so closely . . . but we're just a small part of a big network of FCO desks and posts".
	The report says
	"Country action plans"
	—which is what the award was for—
	"focus on the countries where the greatest numbers of asylum seekers originate, and where systematic HO/FCO co-operation is needed to reduce the number of applicants with no grounds for asylum . . . The plans have helped secure agreements with several countries including Afghanistan, China and Zimbabwe."
	I am sure that the FCO is very proud to have received an award for sending back asylum seekers and doing a deal with Mugabe. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain exactly what deal, if any, has been done.
	I want to refer to one or two asylum cases that have been mentioned in various newspapers. I think that the media have been particularly good in raising some of them. There is the case of Crispen Kulinji, who I know for a fact is an MDC activist. I know that he was tortured. I talked to him with Morgan Tsvangirai last week in Zimbabwe. The MDC has sent clear messages to our Government explaining the position and asking for him not to be deported, and he had been dealt with by our supposedly independent and fair immigration system. Nevertheless, he was to be sent back on Saturday night. That is why I told the Home Secretary today that I did not have much confidence in the independent appeal tribunal. People were not given the right legal advice in many cases. Often, once in the fast track, they had little chance.
	Many Zimbabweans here who are genuine asylum seekers had to leave Zimbabwe without their passports. Crispen's passport was taken from him. He then went to South Africa. It should be remembered that some Zimbabweans do not feel particularly safe in South Africa. It is not always a safe country for Zimbabweans because of the way in which Zimbabwean Government agents work there. We have a close link with Zimbabwe, and a special responsibility for what is happening there. If Zimbabweans have a link with Britain, they will obtain passports by other means. Crispen obtained a Malawi passport. Although the Foreign Office knew that he was not from Malawi, it was intent on sending him back there. The Malawians immediately did what they had done with other asylum seekers. They said "This person is not Malawian. He must go straight back to Harare." The Foreign Office did not even have the decency to send him back to Harare; it let someone else do the dirty work by sending him to Malawi first.
	The same thing is happening to a great many asylum seekers who are in the detention centres. More than 50 have been on hunger strike since last Wednesday. Many are becoming weaker, although they are taking water. Next weekend the G8 nations meet at Gleneagles to begin their conference. Does the Minister really want asylum seekers in our detention centres to be literally near to death as we discuss poverty in Africa? What message does that send to the world about the kind of country we are, and how we can possibly do what we are doing? Crispen is keen not to be the one who is always picked out, because they all work and speak together. It is clear that there are many asylum seekers who are at risk of being sent back.
	I heard on the rumour mill today that the Home Office had decided that it must be careful because the G8 summit was coming up. It does not want to change policy and go back to the pre-November policy, when there was a moratorium. The situation was okay until November. Nobody was being sent back, but suddenly, the policy changed. However, immigration officials have apparently been told this evening that there is a freeze on sending anyone back, to avoid the possibility of the public's becoming aware of such incidents in the next few days. Yet once the G8 is over and everyone attending it has gone home, we will simply return to the policy of speeding up the process of sending people back. I appreciate that the Minister responding to the debate is from the Foreign Office and not the Home Office, but according to the Home Secretary today, everybody is working closely together on this issue. The Minister will therefore doubtless be able to say whether there is any truth in what I have said, and to explain how the situation will be handled.
	The Home Secretary keeps saying that he has received no substantiated evidence of people who have been sent back then being tortured or ill-treated in any way. However, there is a lot of such evidence, all of which is being passed on. Unfortunately, the Home Office tends to lose some very important documents. Indeed, Home Office immigration officials have even gone to the Zimbabwean high commission—I should say the Zimbabwean embassy, as the country is no longer in the Commonwealth—to get information on such people. Their names are well known, therefore, when they are put back on the plane. Anyone travelling back to Harare from this country who has been in detention is immediately suspected as being anti-Mugabe. On all such occasions, the Central Intelligence Organisation meets them at the airport. Just last week, someone who was sent back was immediately questioned and his home was visited. The situation was handled very aggressively, and at the first opportunity he managed to get over the border into South Africa. Such is the fear of many of these people.
	It beggars belief that the Home Office go on about wanting evidence. How does it expect us to get it? Zimbabwe is in chaos, and many of these people have nowhere to return to because they come from demolished areas and their families have been displaced. I do not know what our offices in Harare are doing, but I cannot imagine that our ambassador—he was on holiday when I was there, but I did see his deputy—and his colleagues are looking for any evidence. It might be possible to obtain such evidence in some countries, but given the chaos in Zimbabwe and the state machinery's control of absolutely everything, it is almost impossible to obtain the proof that the Home Secretary wants. However, I hope that he will listen and take account of the various types of evidence that we will provide.

Ian Pearson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) on securing an Adjournment debate on this subject, which is of grave concern to all Members. I pay tribute to her for her courage and commitment to the people of Zimbabwe, who have suffered so much under Mugabe's regime.
	I am replying as both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development are overseas. I would like to thank the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for contributing to the debate, but I have to say that their comments were confined almost exclusively to debating Home Office policy. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made the Government's position very clear earlier today, and I have no new information to impart.
	I want to state categorically at the outset the Government's condemnation of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. We have been robust and swift in raising our concerns with the Government of Zimbabwe directly and also with our EU partners. We are raising concerns bilaterally with southern African Governments and we will continue to build up pressure on the Mugabe regime.
	As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in his statement to the House today, we are committed to providing protection to those Zimbabweans in genuine fear of persecution. Each asylum application will be carefully considered on its individual merits, and we will keep the overall situation under review.
	In replying to this debate, I want to cover the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe generally and the response of the Department for International Development.
	It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
	Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Alan Campbell.]
	I shall cover the humanitarian situation generally, DFID's response to it and then the recent crackdown and other issues raised in the debate, such as asylum assessment and applications.
	Widespread hunger and vulnerability have threatened the people of Zimbabwe for four consecutive years. More than 70 per cent. of the population live in poverty, one in four adults are infected with HIV and there are an estimated 3,200 deaths each week related to AIDS. So far, there are more than 1.3 million orphans. Food insecurity remains an issue for most people. The situation has been made worse by poor and erratic rainfall.
	All that has only compounded the effects of man-made policies that have led to deepening and long-term poverty and hunger. There has been no independent assessment of the harvest in Zimbabwe, and Government food stocks and import plans are unknown or unrealistic. Observers estimate a potential cereal shortage of approximately 1 million metric tonnes, more than half the annual requirement. Although widespread starvation is unlikely, up to 6 million people could experience food shortages by the end of the year. DFID is monitoring the situation closely and awaits clarification from the Government of Zimbabwe as to whether external assistance from the international community will be needed later this year to be channelled through United Nations agencies.
	Zimbabwe's biggest long-term human disaster lies in its being one of the worst-affected countries in the world in terms of HIV and AIDS. Yet Zimbabweans receive the lowest level of donor support in southern Africa. Only 3 per cent. of people who should be receiving treatment with anti-retroviral drugs are actually receiving them. This means that Zimbabwe has the lowest number of people on treatment with anti-retrovirals in the world.
	In response to the poverty-related food crisis and the increasingly desperate situation caused by HIV and AIDS, DFID has contributed more than £71 million for humanitarian assistance in Zimbabwe. The Government's priorities are to support an international response in tackling the HIV/AIDS crisis in Zimbabwe and to support orphans and vulnerable children. DFID is one of the main donors supporting AIDS prevention programmes in Zimbabwe, such as condom supply and support for voluntary counselling and testing centres. We expect to increase the UK spend on HIV prevention, care and mitigation to around £15 million over the next year.
	DFID also provides direct and targeted support through international non-governmental organisations and the UN, which currently reaches up to 1.5 million of the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of the population. That encompasses a range of support, from targeted food imports, especially for the chronically ill, to agricultural products, such as seed and fertilisers. In partnership with UNICEF and other development partners, DFID is designing a programme of support for orphans and other vulnerable children worth £25 million over the next five years. That support will go towards implementing Zimbabwe's national plan of action for orphans and vulnerable children. This year, we have already spent £2 million on community-based activities that directly assist children in need.
	Tragically, political reform in Zimbabwe, which could lead to the prospect of economic recovery, does not appear imminent. Following the March parliamentary elections, the Government of Zimbabwe have shown no sign of moving towards a more transparent and accountable approach to governance. The majority of the population will face desperate poverty for years to come. Households affected by AIDS will be among the worst hit, including the elderly, the chronically ill, and widows and orphans, many of whom have no-one left to turn to for support.
	As the House will be aware, issues have been made worse by the recent and continuing so-called operation "Drive out Rubbish", about which my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall gave graphic details. Anyone who has seen television footage of what is going on in Zimbabwe will be shocked and appalled, as I am. Earlier this month, it was estimated that 66,000 households, about a third of a million people, had been affected at 55 sites. More than 30,000 people have been arrested, mainly traders. That crackdown has been widely condemned by the EU, the UN and local civil society organisations.
	People suffering from AIDS are among the worst affected. Many chronically ill people have been driven from their homes. HIV prevention and home-based care programmes have been seriously disrupted. We are also very concerned about the welfare of children; infants have been forced to sleep outside in the middle of winter and there are reports of children being detained in prison and separated from their parents. The crackdown continues to spread across the country to many urban and some rural areas. Armed police have swiftly crushed isolated pockets of resistance with tear gas.
	DFID is already responding to that man-made disaster, providing support towards humanitarian assistance for the most vulnerable, mainly through the UN and the International Organisation for Migration. A further contribution will be made shortly. To date, nearly 10,000 families have been reached with food, blankets, soap and other forms of assistance. The Mugabe regime's crackdown has operational implications for all the current major humanitarian assistance programmes operated by DFID through the UN and non-governmental organisations.